Abdi Nazemian, "Desert Echoes"

In this episode, Brett sits down with author Abdi Nazemian to discuss his new book, "Desert Echoes", the importance and power of Y/A books, representation in literature, book bans, and gay music icons.


Abdi Nazemian: 
https://www.abdinazemian.com

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Transcript

0:00

Like a love story. Uh, like a love story. And like a love story. And like a love story.

Brett Benner: 0:13

Hello, everybody. I hope you're all having a good week. I had a really good weekend. I was out in the desert for a few days, and managed to get into two different books. One was small rain by Garth Greenwell, which came out about two weeks ago, which is really fantastic about, a man who suddenly gets this incredible pain. And goes into the hospital and what that experience is. Um, if you have any kind of medical paranoia, or if you're a hypochondriac, this is probably like equivalent of a horror novel for you. And that's me. I I'm having a hard time putting it down, but it, it. It's really, really well done. The other thing that I started and is just fantastic as Richard has-beens, we solve murders. I talked about this on my last episode, he, of course, is the author of the Thursday murder club series. This is a new series about a woman and her father. Who become a kind of crime fighting duo together, but it's really, really funny, really smart. I started at this morning. I'm halfway through it. I'm actually doing this one on audio. couple of things that are coming out today before we get into today's interview, the big ones are probably Richard Powers playground, is finally out today. The other thing that is, blanketed everywhere is Sally Rooney, his new book intermezzos which, um, I'm debating. If I'm going to get the. Barnes and noble version or which is orange or just the normal. Yellow one. Also, Pedro Almodovar, the filmmaker, has a new book of short stories that looks really interesting called The Last Dream, so that's out today as well. And of course, all of those books will be on my bookshop.org page. Which you can find under this particular episode, If you are so inclined

2:02

On today's show, I was really happy to sit down with Abdi Nazemian.

Brett Benner: 2:06

So let me tell you a little bit about him. Abdi is the author of Only This Beautiful Moment, Winner of the 2024 Stonewall award and the 2024 Lambda literary award. And like a love story. Uh, Stonewall honor book and one of time magazine's best WIA books of all time. He is also the author of the young adult novels, desert echoes. The Chandler legacies and the authentics, his novel, the walk-in closet won the Lambda literary award for LGBT debut fiction. He's a screenwriting credits include the films, the artist's wife, the quiet and Menendez blood brothers and the television series, ordinary Joe and the village. He's been an executive producer and associate producer on numerous films, including call me by your name little woods and the house of tomorrow. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband, their two children and their dog disco. You can find him online@abbeynazemiand.com. I'll also link that below in the show notes. And today we'll be talking about among other things. Uh, his latest novel desert echoes. So enjoy this episode and thanks for being here. Are you having a good morning?

Abdi Nazemian: 3:16

Yeah, I've been up since 4am. It's a little crazy.

Brett Benner: 3:18

Why so early?

Abdi Nazemian: 3:20

I don't know what's wrong with me. I mean, I'm kind of, I'm supposed I'm kind of jet lagged, but then again, I do this often. I wake up very early to work. Oh, you do? The best work time. Yeah, cause the kids are asleep, I can focus.

Brett Benner: 3:33

Wow. And will you get right up? Like, do you know, like, I just have to get up? Is it that kind of thing, or?

Abdi Nazemian: 3:38

Pretty much. Like, I don't set an alarm, but many, many mornings my body just wakes me up. And I, I feel like it does it most often when I have a lot to do. It's almost like it's telling me. Cross this shit off your to do list right now.

Brett Benner: 3:52

I, I just call that anxiety.

Abdi Nazemian: 3:54

Yeah, I mean, I guess you could call it anxiety except that I end up being really productive and I feel great. That's amazing. Win. Win.

Brett Benner: 4:00

I was thinking back, like the first time I met you, I think was probably a little over a year ago. And it was at this, Palm Springs. I think it was like a gay book festival. Does that sound right?

Abdi Nazemian: 4:12

That, it was right. It was a Palm Springs book festival called Pride on the Page.

Brett Benner: 4:15

That's right. And you were on a panel and I was, outside standing there passing out buttons for the Gays Reading Podcast. And I remember you coming out and we're talking and I was like, Oh my God, he's so funny. And I had had one of your books, I think the Chandler Legacies and had not read it yet. Like you do, you buy a book and then don't read it. But, then we just started chatting and, I was like, Oh my God, I really like this person. And he's so quick and funny and fast and like my people. And so here we are I'm

Abdi Nazemian: 4:44

so happy to be here. Yes. And I remember that you gave me a lot of free books at that event.

Brett Benner: 4:48

Yeah, there were a lot of free books at that event. But I would love to, I would love to back up for, for our listeners and reviewers who don't know anything about you. So your family moved from Iran when you were two, right after the Islamic Revolution, correct? Correct. Yeah. And you were in Paris for five years?

Abdi Nazemian: 5:06

We were in Paris, yeah. We left, you know, right before, right as the revolution was getting started, before it got, you know, even worse. We were in Paris for five years and then Toronto for three years after that. And then my family moved to New York, kind of to the suburbs of, of New York and Westchester. And now they live in New York City. I moved to Los Angeles after college to start working in film and television and then never looked back. But yeah, so a lot of journeying.

Brett Benner: 5:35

Wow. A lot of places. And then you were in Connecticut for boarding school at Choate. Yes, correct. And then you were in Columbia. What did you go to Columbia for?

Abdi Nazemian: 5:44

So I went to Columbia. I mean, I really went to Columbia for a liberal arts degree. I was going to be a film major and I decided to switch to English.

Brett Benner: 5:52

Okay.

Abdi Nazemian: 5:53

So I, I graduated with an English major and then many years later, kind of in between what I would call phase one of my career and phase two of my career, I went and got an MBA at UCLA, which is one of the wilder things I've ever done.

Brett Benner: 6:06

Yeah. And so what was your thought process there? Was it like, what were you going to do with that?

Abdi Nazemian: 6:11

Well, I mean, my thought process there was that it was I was coming off of the 2007 2008 screenwriter strike. At that point, I had really only been a feature writer, not a TV writer, and that industry pretty much went away. The world of paying writers to develop screenplays that were not giant I. P. Properties was gone. Like I was getting paid, right? The strangest things for studios and Kind of simultaneously that I also had two kids and was panicking about like how do I? raise these kids with no certainty of where my next job is coming from and So that was really the thought process the thought process was like I would go to business school and emerge from it with no Hopefully, still staying in the entertainment industry, but with the potential to go get a more stable executive type position in some facet of it. And then, ironically, the MBA actually taught me a much more entrepreneurial way of thinking, which led me to self publish my first book, which had been rejected. Oh, wow. Yeah, so my first novel, The Walk in Closet, was rejected by every publisher. Which many writers have the same story that I have, which is, you know, you get rejected everywhere, you give up, and then at some point, the fire comes back. And so in my case, I decided to self publish it. It ended up winning the Lambda Literary Award for Best Debut. And that was really, I mean, I really credit that award, to be honest, with convincing me I should keep writing books, because at that point, I was like, I just want to get this story out. I, it, it was about being gay and Iranian and, You know, I wanted to put that out there and and it turned out it was I think the first novel with a Gay Iranian male lead character, which is pretty wild came out in 2014 So that's how new these conversations are but then after winning the lambda it felt like okay Maybe all those publishers who rejected me were wrong and I'm not some terrible writer. Yeah. Yeah, you're doing this and I And then I decided to try YA. I mean, I, my agent at the time told me like, you should keep writing, but you should find a lane that makes more sense commercially for you. And I had a cousin who was a teacher who is still, I mean, actually now she's on the administrative side, but is an educator. And, She had been sending me some of what I would call like the brilliant first wave books of, of YA. Of like when YA really became a genre. So books like Aristotle and Dante Discover the Science of the Universe. Becky Albertalli's book, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. And there were, there were all these other ones. Just books that for me were like, Oh, if this is what's happening in YA, maybe that's where I belong. And so that's when I started. I started.

Brett Benner: 8:58

It's interesting because think a lot of people have a perception about what YA is, or they hear YA. Yeah. And I was thinking about it last night because I wish there was somehow a different name for it because there is a maturity and a sophistication and Amazing storytelling happening under this genre that I think a lot of people, adults specifically, will miss out on.

Abdi Nazemian: 9:24

Look, yes, I agree. And I deal with a lot of like the snobbery of the literary establishment. I mean, most, most of the kind of established literary papers barely cover YA. And if they do, it's in a very kind of, um, I, in my opinion, like ungenerous way. Toward the actual artistry of it, but one thing that did make me very happy is like my novel, Like a Love Story, which is YA, and it's about three teenagers getting involved in AIDS activism in the 80s and ACT UP, and it's, you know, I think it's an adult mini, a book many adults love too it was on this Time magazine list of 100 best YA books of all time. And when I opened up that list, one of the things that really surprised and delighted me was seeing that it was there with lots of modern YA books, but also there with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of Anne Frank and Little Women and a lot of books that would now be considered YA that at the time were not because that genre had not been designated as a, as a marketable thing yet. So I always just think for me as a storyteller, It's a marketing genre, like it's, it's so that there can be a shelf in the bookstore for people who have teenagers to lead them to. Within YA you have, just as in other genres, you have like your poppy books, you have your mysteries, you have your romances, you have your literary YA, you have YA written in prose, you have Historical fiction YA, you know, you have like all, just it runs the gamut and it, I guess for me as somebody who is in YA and who has so many friends who are doing such ambitious things in YA, it's sometimes frustrating how many people won't even take a look at what's being said. done in the genre.

Brett Benner: 11:06

It's interesting. And I also think it's it in the last say 10 years, it's exploded so much, maybe longer because I remember reading some of these things, but it was literally like the perks of being a wallflower and, you know, which is an incredible, incredible book. But In terms of someone being gay and young, there really wasn't anything. I mean, not that I can, not that I really can remember. I mean, I was trying to pull stuff out of a separate piece. Yes,

Abdi Nazemian: 11:35

totally. Oh, I mean, I was trying to remember a separate piece. Very well. I was a board. I was

Brett Benner: 11:39

trying to like read into it. But there really wasn't a lot, but I know now I just look at the. The vastness of it,

Abdi Nazemian: 11:47

the other thing I'll say on behalf of all YA writers, not just myself, is, you know, my, my favorite artist, Madonna, often quotes my favorite writer, James Baldwin, who says artists are here to disturb the peace. And I do believe that in some way. We're also here to create peace and bring peace, but we're also here to shake things up and make people see things that they feel uncomfortable seeing and, you know, for better or for worse, although I think many of the literary writers and people at New York Times don't want to admit it, the people who are disturbing the peace right now are YA and children's authors. I mean, we're the ones being banned, we're the ones being threatened, we're the ones like holding our heads up high and telling the stories a lot of people, are afraid of right now and, you know, sometimes it would be nice if that were taken a little more seriously.

Brett Benner: 12:32

Sure. And I have to say, like going back, because I just finished like a love story. And To say it resonated with me, it was so impactful and I was so moved by it because that was my time. All of it you were talking about was, you know, I was slightly older than these characters at the start, but all of these feelings and thoughts and the fear of AIDS and all of it was so right on the nose. I just thought it was fantastic. I started texting people yesterday who I know read YA on Bookstagram. I'm like, have you read this yet? Have you read this yet? Oh,

Abdi Nazemian: 13:11

thank you. Because

Brett Benner: 13:12

Because not only is it a beautiful story, and it's so well wrought, but it's also, it's a great historical timepiece. Yeah. And it's a great piece of history for people who don't really know, and I think a lot of young people really still don't know what it was like, and that abject fear, and all of those things.

Abdi Nazemian: 13:28

And I mean, in that book, the character of Reza, who's very much inspired by me, he's a, Iranian kid moving to New York with his mom, you know, just as I move in my family, he's obviously closeted in a culture where it's very hard. to come out and he's moving to New York during those worst years of the crisis, but he lives in such fear and shame. And so many young readers, when I talked to them about this book, they can't believe that he lives in that kind of fear and shame for the duration of the book, which is one school year. And I tell them, you have to understand, I lived like that until my mid twenties.

Brett Benner: 14:00

Like I

Abdi Nazemian: 14:01

barely, I barely had any sexual intimacy. I was so afraid Of getting sick of, you know, destroying my family of so many things like they, they can't quite imagine what it is to live in that level of fear for so long.

Brett Benner: 14:16

Like a hundred percent. I remember constantly checking my body for like any kind of discoloration, anything that would look up anything I would be like, Oh my God, oh my God. And I mean,

Abdi Nazemian: 14:28

Yes. Everything I put in that book came from my, you know, the fear of like, oh my god, I have a hangnail, I have a cut. That's right. What if I get, and, you know, it's absolutely wild. I mean, I had my first HIV test when I was in my first relationship, and I had not had any sex at that point. And, I mean, I cried for, I cried until I got the results because I was so convinced. I was going to be sick and despite never having done anything, and it really speaks to how the messaging of that era, especially when you were my age, when you were so young and when the messaging began, it did its job, which was to convince you not to take risks.

Brett Benner: 15:04

That's right.

Abdi Nazemian: 15:04

But on the other hand, the fear was so deep and the belief that you would be sick no matter what, it was, it was really hard and it really did create this link between. Love, sex, and intimacy, and death and illness in a way that took years of therapy to unravel.

Brett Benner: 15:22

the book is fantastic. But. Moving on to Desert Echoes, your latest one. Yes. Which is equally fantastic. For our, listeners, our viewers, can you give a little, summary of the book for everyone so they know what it's about? Sure.

Abdi Nazemian: 15:39

Yeah. I mean, Desert Echoes is the story of Cam, who's a, High school student in Los Angeles. He's gay and Iranian, as is his best friend Bodhi. And it goes back and forth between Cam's freshman and junior year. In his freshman year, he falls madly in love with Ash, who's a new student at the school. And Ash is this kind of mysterious, mercurial, charismatic artist. And, They take a trip to Joshua Tree together with Ash's family, and Ash disappears into the desert. And this, of course, haunts Cam for two years, and in his junior year, his GSA group at school decides to take a school trip to Joshua Tree, and so him and his best friend Bodhi go back, and in the desert he's going to be faced with all of the memories, the questions, all the things that have haunted him since losing his boyfriend and not knowing what happened.

Brett Benner: 16:31

That was excellent. You've done this before. I've,

Abdi Nazemian: 16:34

I've, I've tried. I've tried. I'm owning the bitch.

Brett Benner: 16:38

Yeah, so it moves back and forth in time and it really reads at times, it's like a mystery because you really don't know what happened. And, that kind of drives a lot of the narrative. Cam and Bodhi, I love this relationship. I love this friendship, this lifelong friendship that, that I think is so, so special. Can you talk a little bit about that? And have you ever had anyone in your life like that?

Abdi Nazemian: 17:00

You know, I've had a lot of people, I mean, I should say, because it'll probably come up at some point, that this novel is very inspired by my first boyfriend, Damon, who was very similar to Ash in many ways. He was charismatic and mercurial and an artist, and he would disappear into the desert to create, just like Ash in the book does. And similarly to that dynamic with Bodhi, a lot of my friends didn't really like him, they didn't get him, they felt like he was, you know, too mysterious, that there were all these unanswered questions around him, so I felt like I was drawing on a lot of that in writing Bodhi, like that, that really interesting dynamic where your friends don't like the person you date, and then, you know, all those questions about like, well, is it jealousy? Are you not supportive of me? But the other thing that really inspired the writing of the character of Bodhi is when I was young and I came out as a gay Iranian I didn't really know any other gay Iranians I very much felt alone in my cultural community. And then what I'm observing now is this new generation of Iranian kids are getting to come out younger. Our community is growing a lot. And I really wanted to write two best friends who are both gay and Iranian because it's, you know, for my life it was always such an isolated experience and I, I felt like this was a unique opportunity to tell a story of two people who share this like very specific intersectional identity that very few people share openly. And what does that look like in their dynamic?

Brett Benner: 18:29

Now, when you talk about more kids coming out now, is that here in the States?

Abdi Nazemian: 18:35

Yeah, of course. I mean, in Iran, there is a queer community. They're not out in the way we are here. I wrote quite a bit about them in my last book, Only This Beautiful Moment, which takes place in three different eras in both Tehran and Los Angeles, but does kind of shine a light on queer life in Iran today. But I'm talking specifically about the West, of course. And here in the last decade, I've seen such huge changes in the Iranian community. I mean, just here in Los Angeles where I live, there's a, there's a queer Iranian group that has get togethers and events. groups, therapy groups, there's way more like when I first published my book, I felt like there were so few queer Iranian artists. Now there's so many writers, artists. It's, it's just a huge amount of change in a short amount of time.

Brett Benner: 19:27

That's amazing.

Abdi Nazemian: 19:28

Yeah.

Brett Benner: 19:29

You described Ash, I thought so perfectly when you said he's mysterious, he's a dreamer, he's such a spiritual kind of character. To be honest, I think I had a little bit of a Bodhi reaction to him in the beginning. I was like, come on, but that's okay. That's

Abdi Nazemian: 19:43

what, that's what you, yes.

Brett Benner: 19:46

Yes. Because, and it's also the kind of the way he spoke and the way he was. And I recognize those people. I thought, you know, he probably has his crystals. There probably a little bit of incense going on at some point.

Abdi Nazemian: 20:00

Yeah. And he doesn't, you know, he doesn't have a. He still makes mixtapes, you know, he's, he's very out of time, which is something I love. I mean, I, I always felt like I was out of time growing up. I was obsessed with like old movies from the thirties and forties when I was growing up in the eighties and nineties. Even

Brett Benner: 20:16

the way he approaches literature, the way he talks about books, in one respect I can completely understand someone falling under this guy's spell. Because if you're under the spell, it's everything, but, just, as the cynic that I am, as I'm reading it, I was like, dude, come on one of the other really interesting things about this, and this is something you address, in like a love story.

20:40

The parents of Cam.

Brett Benner: 20:42

and the conservative view and the conservative view on homosexuality. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Abdi Nazemian: 20:49

Yeah. You know, one reason I feel so galvanized to keep writing YA books specifically about gay Iranians is because I really want to show the wide variety of responses different Iranian families can have, different queer Iranians can have. Like, I think the, the real danger of not having a lot of representation is that The very little representation you do have feels like it represents everyone and so in my books I try to have Families that feel different. I mean like a love story Reza's mom does have a hard time with his sexuality But his stepfather who's also Iranian really accepts him right away And so those are very different responses based on the different life experiences they've had because in that book, the stepfather had been living in New York a lot longer, had been exposed to, to gay people in a way that his mother hadn't. I mean, in this book, I really wanted to explore the kind of, Very, specific sense of denial and compartmentalization that can happen in, in our families and I think in many families, be they other immigrant families or Western families, like it's not Wasp

Brett Benner: 21:56

families

Abdi Nazemian: 21:57

or wasp, certainly wasp families. Yes. Um, you know what I'm talking about? It's like, yeah, it's the family that is still there for you physically there. They're sitting next to you at dinner. You're going on vacations together. But they're not asking questions about your romantic life. They're not. They're not seeing the whole you. They kind of only want to see the part of you that they feel comfortable with. And they say they accept the other parts of you, but they hold it at a distance. Sure. What does that look like? And I think that is something I've explored in, in a lot of my books cause it was my life experience and, and it's one that I, I find we don't talk about enough. Like there's a lot of examples of like parents kicking their kids out and telling their kids they'll never talk to them again. I'm like, yeah, that never happened to me or most people I know. But what happened was just this like. Subtle freeze, you know, it's like it's like you feel the love but you also know the love can't Hold this part of you. And so you start to also withhold your own self and It takes a lot to kind of bring all of that together.

Brett Benner: 23:02

When did you first come out to your parents?

Abdi Nazemian: 23:05

I came out to my parents when I was 24. I might be getting the exact age wrong. I'm very bad with age. Once you get to a certain age. It all

Brett Benner: 23:12

runs together eventually.

Abdi Nazemian: 23:14

Exactly. But actually I came out because of Damon. Because of my first boyfriend. We were going to move in together and he did not want to. He was very much of like an activist. He was very out. And he didn't want to live with somebody who was in the closet. And I think he made a lot of sense. He was like, I don't want to have to pretend I'm your roommate when your mom calls or when your dad calls. And I can't live in that kind of deception. And so I came out to my parents then. And, you know, very similar to the dynamics in this book with Ash, they, they kind of heard me and it wasn't, you know, I still loved them and they still loved me, but they never got to know him. We never merged those parts of my life.

Brett Benner: 23:53

Did you ever meet him?

Abdi Nazemian: 23:54

My mom met him. My dad didn't. But at that point, you know, it was very, just very different kind of dynamic. I mean, now I'm married and I have kids and my parents are with my husband all the time. He goes to New York for work. He stays with them. We're all, we're all like one united family. At that point in my life, we, I was living in Los Angeles. They were living in New York. And when I was with them, it was always not in LA, you know, so yeah, that much opportunity we would have had to make a real effort for that to cross. And in retrospect, I can admit my own part in it, which is also that as much as. It was hard that they didn't maybe make the, the overtures to get to know him better. I also didn't push that hard for it to happen because it was also more comfortable for me to keep my life separate. And I think that's something we have to talk about as well, is we often, I think as queer people, compartmentalize pieces of ourselves. I mean, I know, I mean, even just look at social media. I feel like half the gay people I know have like their private gay. group that they do stories for.

Brett Benner: 24:55

Yeah, it's this strange kind of almost code switching that happens that it's like, uh, I'll be gay for this or, you know, the merging of the world. And I think it's an ongoing thing. And I certainly think surely young people, like I look at my son, there's such a difference now with a lot of the way they relate. Cause they don't, but for so many of us who grew up in such a different time, I found it very hard. Do you think with your parents, I know one of the big changes, like when you were having kids, was that, and maybe it was before that, but I found that was a big thawing point. And it wasn't as much my father, it was merely my mom who really struggled with it a lot. But because I think, Kids kind of solidify this isn't going anywhere, right?

Abdi Nazemian: 25:42

Well, yeah, I think by that point by the time I had kids I think my parents had accepted that this isn't going anywhere part. Yeah, but I think the thing about kids is It gives you this common interest, this common love. and it's not so much by that point that I think they thought my queerness was gonna disappear, but there weren't opportunities to merge the worlds in a way that made sense, you know? Like, they're not, they live on the other side of the country. They're not gonna come, like, into my To hang out. To hang out at bars or something with me. It's just not a realistic thing. But of course, yes, once I'm married with kids, and we get to go on family vacations and we get to talk for hours about the kids and how they're developing and how cool they are and how funny they are, you know, then all of a sudden your queer world, which is really now a queer family world, merges with theirs. And to be honest, I think for me, It's been perhaps the greatest joy, if not one of the greatest joys, certainly of my entire life has been watching the relationship between my kids and my parents. That's amazing. It's just the most beautiful thing. Like, I love my parents so much, and I love my kids more than anything. And to see how much they love each other, and how close they are, and how great my parents are as grandparents, how much they've evolved and, and to watch my kids who are growing up in this incredibly progressive kind of Los Angeles liberal bubble, understand that my parents come from a different generation and culture and learn to respect some of those boundaries as well and learn to love and empathize in a way that I feel many people. in the youth of our world don't. That's also been a real blessing because I really want my kids to learn that everyone's worthy of love and empathy, even if they don't agree with everything you believe.

Brett Benner: 27:38

Sure. Sure. How old are your parents?

Abdi Nazemian: 27:41

Uh, I don't know if I should say that publicly. They're those kind of parents. I mean, they're in their eighties. Okay. Um, yeah, you can reveal a Persian age on

Brett Benner: 27:54

north of 60, south of 60.

Abdi Nazemian: 27:58

I mean, I'm nearing 50 myself. They were not 10 year old parents.

Brett Benner: 28:04

Right Um, you mentioned, uh, early on that one of the ashes things that he still does is a mixtape, which I love this so much because I think so many people today, young people, especially don't understand like the value and the time that goes into a damn mixtape. I know. the specificity of it. I used to sit in my living room with my, you know, two fingers. Like it was like a record player that connected to the tape player below and you'd hold it down to hit pause, like just as it started to get the beginning of the next song on the record.

Abdi Nazemian: 28:40

I know.

Brett Benner: 28:42

And God forbid if it like skipped or something, you'd be like, Oh,

Abdi Nazemian: 28:45

I got

Brett Benner: 28:45

to go

Abdi Nazemian: 28:46

back. I mean, there's something about that physical media and the tactileness of it. And how hard it was to get certain stuff, you know, because back then, of course, like as kids, You couldn't buy every record. It was very expensive. I mean, one album costs more than a month on Spotify or Apple Music. Like, and so you would, you were often like taping the radio, you know, like just to get that, get access to that song. I mean, I used to, when I, When we moved to the United States and I felt very isolated in the suburbs, I would put a VHS tape in the VCR. I would record TNT all day, which back then would show old movies. It was what TCM is now, but with commercials. And then when I got home, I would basically fast forward through the commercials and watch whatever. had played on TNT that day and then I would organize all the VHSs by movie star alphabetically. So it was like, you know, I mean, psychotic. Really? I was, I was 10 years old. You have to understand like how odd I look back and I'm like, who was I? I mean, it was like, you know, Bacall, Davis, Dietrich, Garbo, you know, all in alphabetical order.

Brett Benner: 29:52

I think you just did a line from Vogue.

Abdi Nazemian: 29:55

I did. Well, yes, yes. But was Lauren Bacall in Vogue? God, now I'm like, Joan Crawford wasn't. That's, that's the big scandal. But then Madonna rectified it with the power of goodbye video, which is a shot by shot recreation of humor esque. And one thing I talk about in like a love story, and I'm just so fascinated by, is the way that as, Young queer people we find we find this these queer icons without that's the next

Brett Benner: 30:19

thing. I was gonna talk to you about. Yes. Yes it

Abdi Nazemian: 30:22

Absolutely is one of the most fascinating things in the whole world. I was 10 years old I was already obsessed with Madonna so obsessed I made my parents take me to the Virgin tour when I was eight, which is wild and Then I somehow discovered Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, like all those old movie stars. How? Like, how did I, they weren't made of, exposed me. Yeah. And I didn't know they were gay icons until I was much older. And I think there's a line in like, Love Story, which came from my life, where, when I did come out to my parents, I said to them, like, how did you not know? Think I was gay when I literally turned the storage closet of our house into the Madonna room I mean it was a Madonna room We had a Madonna room in our house and my mom said we thought you had a crush on her They didn't understand gay culture and it's a very valid response. I mean if you don't understand queer culture gay icons Wouldn't you think your son had a crush on this highly sexualized? Yeah,

Brett Benner: 31:24

absolutely. You know? Yeah. but it does continue like very much in desert echoes. It's Lana Del Rey. But, but it is, it is a really interesting, thing. Cause I remember growing up and I saw the wizard of Oz, but nobody said this is a gay icon. And I became obsessed with Judy Garland. I used to play that live at the Palladium, that double album. And of course, like, why wasn't it seemed like you said, why wouldn't my mother like, huh? Cause Judy Garland was no Madonna. And, but did your mom

Abdi Nazemian: 31:53

know? I mean, see, my mom wouldn't have known. Like, we loved, my whole family loves Bette Midler, and now my kids love Bette Midler. They've seen more Bette Midler movies than any other actor. Like, my dad was obsessed with Bette Midler. My dad was obsessed with Cher. Like, he's the straightest

Brett Benner: 32:08

kid in the

Abdi Nazemian: 32:09

world. Yeah, and some of those things, Well, and some of those

Brett Benner: 32:10

things you grew up with.

Abdi Nazemian: 32:11

Yes, I didn't realize, because my parents loved those people too. And by the way, my parents went to see Madonna without me a few years ago. So like, it stuck, you know, and they love Madonna now. So, I didn't know they were gay icons because my parents liked them too, it didn't seem that unusual until I went into gay culture and I was like, holy shit, everyone I'm obsessed with. Like,

Brett Benner: 32:33

And there was, there was probably not, there also wasn't the dissemination of information like there is now too. So you couldn't suddenly, you know, open an app and be like, hi, here you go, all this stuff at your fingertips. Of course, now you know this, but you know, I didn't then. But you watch each generation. You have the boys. who are into the Britney thing. And now it's Chapel Roan who has become like the new Lady Gaga. It keeps perpetuating itself. It's really incredible and also very strange. It's like this built in DNA thing. I, I think there needs to be a whole study done of it. I think there needs to, somebody needs to literally like a sociologist or someone, there is a

Abdi Nazemian: 33:06

very good book I read called how to be gay. Have you heard of it? You should probably read it.

Brett Benner: 33:12

I feel

Abdi Nazemian: 33:13

like that it focused a lot on Joan Crawford and specifically on Mildred Pierce, but it, it used that as one example of like It basically is about this coded language and how we find it and why we see ourselves in it, I read it a long time ago when it came out, but I remember it feeling It's all it's all about this discussion.

Brett Benner: 33:32

How much are you pulling from your life? I mean, I know you said in the past that Chandler Legacies was, was kind of influenced by your experience being at Choate. Do you find yourself working through stuff?

Abdi Nazemian: 33:44

I tell people my books are emotionally autobiographical, at least starting with like a love story, like a love story to me. Is where I started to write much more honestly and really found my voice. I'm not one of those authors who feels like everything I've written is perfect or great. Like, I really liked my first two books, but I feel like they, I was still learning a lot about how to write a novel and I wasn't quite ready to. fully be honest about my experience. Both of those novels are, narrated by the female characters, just as one example of how I wasn't ready to fully inhabit my, my own queer experience. With Like a Love Story, I feel like I really pushed myself to go to all the places that I feared putting on the page, all the fear, the vulnerability, the shame, the thoughts that, you know, I felt like if anyone ever saw them, they would not love me anymore because I was so queer. Broken.

Brett Benner: 34:36

Yeah.

Abdi Nazemian: 34:36

And of course, the irony is that's what resonates most. And then it heals you because you realize why have I been hiding all this? I was never alone. A whole generation of people went through the same experience and it was such a powerful healing thing. And since then, I do feel like each book is emotionally autobiographical, but they don't bear any resemblance to my life in a literal way. You know, like Desert Echoes is very inspired by my own experience of falling in love at a young age with someone who I perceived as being so much stronger than me in personality and who inspired me and who over time I realized was not the strong rock I thought he was and that he was very damaged. And it's about that experience of healing. It's a little bit about survivor's guilt. I know as a queer person, I've lost so many other close friends through the years to suicide and addiction. And I always. felt this feeling of like, why am I surviving? Why am I still thriving? Like, why did these other people who in many cases seemed more together, more successful than me at a young age, not make it? And so it's also about how do you heal and how do you like allow yourself to find love and joy again, knowing that someone you loved, loved you back.

Brett Benner: 35:51

Yeah, because the other thing I was gonna wanted to ask you about is a lot of the themes in your book deal with grief and and loss and mourning. And what I appreciate so much about the way you write these topics is you don't shy away from them and they feel very authentic. and very real. And, uh, so I really, I appreciate that as a reader. And I think that's what makes us as the reader connect and empathize with these characters so much.

Abdi Nazemian: 36:28

I hope so. And, and also, you know, these are universal themes. I mean, maybe someone didn't live through the worst of the HIV AIDS crisis, but they, you know, they've lived through other crises. I mean, so many young people I talked to about the book, make links between. What we went through in COVID and what they went through and try to find those through lines of history. They're looking at how Reagan responded to the crisis he was faced with versus how Trump responded. They're looking, you know, it's so fascinating to, to use storytelling as this way to connect

Brett Benner: 37:02

and bridge

Abdi Nazemian: 37:03

and, and I do try. I'm very, you know, I hopefully your listeners can tell that I'm like a hopeful, optimistic human who has leaned into like. Seeking love and connection all through my life. And I feel like one of the things I love in writing these books is showing people that the grief and the pain and the trauma always coexist with the love and the community and the music and the fun and the colors, like it's all one big swirl of, of life. And that's something like, I remember talking to ACT UP members when I was researching like a love story and they would say, yeah, we were, we were enraged and we were grieving our whole community and then at night we would go dancing all night and

Brett Benner: 37:45

Yeah,

Abdi Nazemian: 37:45

you know we would cruise the meetings even though we knew that there was this fight like they were finding Joy and love even in that horrible time and similarly for only this beautiful moment I was talking to people who have lived in iran who know the queer community there and It's so repressive, but they find ways to congregate. They find ways to feel joy. They find ways to, to connect and, and be intimate. So, you know, it's, it's always a reminder that like the power of, of life is that no matter how bad it gets, you can find the light as well.

Brett Benner: 38:18

And you could persevere.

Abdi Nazemian: 38:19

Yeah.

Brett Benner: 38:21

The last thing I want to just really quickly touch on, the book banning thing, because, um, you know, you have been affected for people who don't really understand but can you just talk about that? Like, it's just gotta be the strangest

Abdi Nazemian: 38:31

thing. Oh, it's completely bizarre. I mean, I'll say on a personal level, when it really started for me, I responded in a way that I wish I hadn't, which is I let it really get to me. I got very angry. I got defensive. I would respond online. And I mean, that's a very human reaction, but it, it was taking me down. It was kind of breaking me down, which I think is exactly what the book banners want. They want us to be angry and afraid and reactionary. And I think what I've learned is to just stand strong in my values. Like the best thing we can do as authors is present our work openly with an open heart. And yeah. and ignore it as hard as that is. Um, I think for people who don't know, you know, the, the typical response I get when my book gets banned in another district, because it does happen district by district. It's not like your book is banned in the United States, you know. but people often are, they just like congratulate you as if it's a badge of honor. And I think what people need to understand is first the authors who are living who are banned because for the most part when the media and high profile people talk about book banning, they always seem to use the same three books by authors who have not been with us for a very long time. But those of us who are alive are dealing with threats. We're getting, you know, I've gotten pretty alarming threats on social media. that is, Not a pleasant feeling. It's really scary. Especially when you're not somebody who can afford security and you have a schedule that's very public where you're doing event after and it's, it's just not like a positive. It's not a badge of honor. the other thing is it really doesn't improve sales. It's like, I think that's another big, they did a big study on this. Like, especially for YAs, the majority of sales come from schools and libraries. And part of the purpose of the bans is to stop schools and libraries from stocking books. And In many of my school visits, I meet educators, but especially librarians who are buying books out of their own pockets because they can't get them approved anymore. They can't risk stocking your books from the school budgets anymore. So the book manners are getting what they want there. So I just think if people were more educated, they would realize it's not, there's no positive when a, when an author gets banned, it's not a, a good experience or something to congratulate someone for. It's really, it's pretty alarming. And then when you zoom out of your own experience, of course, there's just the heartbreaking reality that if you're not in a community like ours here in LA, you know, all over our own country, let alone the world, there's. Young people living in communities where their parents, because it really is parent led, the book bands for the most part, their parents are telling the schools not to teach any queer books. That means they're growing up in environments. Yeah. So they're growing up in the same kind of repressive, shame based environment we grew up in and we know how hard it was to extricate ourselves from that and I know from my own community like we've discussed how many people end up taking their own lives because of that. So, It's just, it's really awful. You know, when you really think about it, when you take the time to look beyond like a headline and think about what it means, it's pretty sad. That's another thing that's so hard to be honest, is like as a, I'm not like. I'm a human. I mean, yes, I'm an author and I want to keep doing this. And for me to keep doing this amazing work, I have to sell books. So I have to be right. On the other hand, I feel completely disgusting, like talking about selling my books when we're talking about book banning, because the issue of book banning is so much bigger than Sales of a book. It's about these poor children in communities where they're feeling ostracized and shamed and then I don't want to like, use that too. So it, it creates all these really strange things where like, I just want to shine the light on, the issue. I hope people buy the books and I hope people, you know, look, if you care about book banning, you can donate books to schools. You can go to DonorsChoose. A lot of teachers need help there and also like the other thing we have to keep reminding people about book banning is the authors are the ones being banned, but the people dealing with it day in day out are the educators. It is the school librarians, the heads of the English departments that I've talked to those people. They're fielding these discussions with parents constantly. They're having a harder time of it than the authors. So you can also get involved in, in that way. There's a lot of things people can do in addition to buying the books, but yes, by

Brett Benner: 43:00

the

Abdi Nazemian: 43:00

books, others love that.

Brett Benner: 43:02

Well, this is amazing. I could, I could literally talk to you all day and likely I'll get to see you again. And so it's not, I hope so.

Abdi Nazemian: 43:09

I hope so. This was so fun.

Brett Benner: 43:11

But, yes, by the book, you can get it from my bookshop. org page, which will have all of Abdi's these books up there again, it is desert echoes. It is fantastic. I so appreciate you and appreciate everything you're writing and everything you're putting out and the people you are touching. I just think it's a, it's a fantastic thing. So thank you.

Abdi Nazemian: 43:32

Thank you. That is very sweet.

Brett Benner: 43:34

And, uh, I will see you soon,

43:37

Thank you so much Abdi for joining me once again, all the books that were discussed today, as well as the ones I talked about in the beginning are available on my bookshop.org page. So be sure to check that out. Also, if you're enjoying the show. Please like, and subscribe. And if you had the time and wouldn't mind writing to review. On your podcast of choice, it's really helpful. And I would really appreciate it. I will see you all next week and I hope you all have a fantastic first week of fall. Bye.